Melissa Scott - The Inheritors

"Nice job, guys," Sam said.

"It is a pleasure, Colonel Carter," Teal'c replied with his customary aplomb.

The jumper was too far, the friendly hive ship closing on Death's ship.

"Ma'am?" Franklin asked.

Sam glanced at the screen. Already the radiation was spiking above what any human being could bear, the jumper beginning to glow. Its comm was silent. Goodbye, Rodney , she whispered to herself. Goodbye.

You can't , John started to say. On the city's sensors the jumper was so close and so distant at once, but he already had. The jumper didn't explode. It simply dissolved. The heat and radiation melted through the skin. One moment it was there and the next it was a dispersing cloud of complex atoms.

"Was someone aboard that jumper?" Woolsey asked over the comm.

"Rodney," John said. His voice sounded odd and even, not his own. "I guess he wasn't working for Queen Death, huh?" And then anger overtook him, anger at himself and Woolsey and Todd and the entire rest of the universe.

"We couldn't know," Woolsey began.

"He took my mission," John said. "My mission," and Woolsey fell silent before the fury in his voice. He opened the comm. "Todd? You see that? Todd! That was Rodney destroying your precious weapon and getting killed doing it. Now get your skinny Wraith ass into the battle! You hear me? Get your ass into the battle!"

Woolsey broke in. "We've fulfilled our part of the deal. Now fulfill yours."

The city's sensors reported movement, the ships of Todd's alliance powering weapons, the flagship beginning to move.

"We are engaging," Alabaster said over the comm, her voice tranquil. "All ships, fire as you have targets. Your cleverman's sacrifice shall not be in vain. All ahead full, please."

With a distant surge of energy, Guide's alliance opened fire.

On the computer screen in front of Jennifer, the spot of light that had been Rodney's jumper was gone. The audio feed from the control room continued — Sheppard was yelling at Guide to get into the battle, hot rage in his voice — but she felt like a blanket of silence had descended around her, a sudden fall of snow.

Marie was saying something, probably all the right words of sympathy, but Jennifer brushed away a comforting hand.

"I knew this would happen," she said.

It felt less like a sudden death was supposed to than like the end of a terminal illness, the feeling that something she'd been struggling to hold onto for so long had been torn from her, and now she was lighter whether she wanted to be or not. She wouldn't wonder any longer how many more times she could fight to bring Rodney back from the brink of death before she lost him. That was over.

The floor rocked as another heavy barrage of fire hit the city's shields, and she steadied herself until the tremor passed. When she looked up, Carson had come in from the next room, his face showing that he knew.

"Did you see…?" he began.

"I know. I saw."

"Oh, Rodney." His voice was choked. "He was doing a very brave thing."

"That was Rodney," Jennifer said, and then the tears were wet on her cheeks, although she held her voice steady. "I should have married him, you know? I mean, given the way things turned out. It… it would have meant a lot to him, I think."

"You can't think that way. You couldn't have known—"

"I knew," Jennifer said. It was the price of living in this beautiful crystal city, so deceptively beautiful and so incredibly deadly. Rodney had wanted to spend the rest of his life in Atlantis, and that meant dying young.

For a moment anger and grief knotted together in her throat. There were so many things she had hoped they could have together, work and laughter and a baby for Rodney to insist on bundling in clothes too warm for the weather, a baby to wear tiny T-shirts with mathematical jokes on them. There were so many places she had wanted to see, so many things worth doing, and she would see them and do them, she knew, but not with him.

"I am so terribly sorry," Carson said softly.

"So am I," Jennifer said. She swallowed hard and brushed away tears she couldn't afford yet. "But we still have work to do."

"That we do," Carson said, and turned to check on their patients. They'd have more than enough work soon.

Just Fortune leaped willingly into battle, all systems perfect, glad in its way to finally do its part. Guide rested his hands on the controls, half in and half out of the ship-trance, a skill he had perfected over the years. The ship responded eagerly to his familiar touch, arcing up and over the dome of Atlantis's shields to bear down on the other hive. Mist's hive, he thought, or perhaps Noontide's; the two ships had been very nearly indistinguishable, grown from similar Seeds in the same year. It didn't matter. He could see the marks of damage on their mottled hide, could hear the blades at the guns marking those wounds and setting their targets. The hive could flee, or it could die.

A part of him wondered distantly why Sheppard had waited so long, why they had sacrificed McKay in the end, for sacrifice it had been, there had been no mistaking the true grief in Sheppard’s voice. Was it possible that Death had retained some hold over him, broken only at the last moment, in time to make that final choice? Or had Sheppard and McKay had to act alone, overruling Woolsey and Carter's Consort? Most likely he would never know, and a part of him regretted that, even as he regretted McKay's death. But the main thing, the vital thing, was that Hyperion's weapon was destroyed, and he would fulfill his part of the bargain.

A second hive was drifting damaged at the edge of the battle, but he could see thrusters firing, struggling to bring the ship back into the battle. Better to stop that before it started, he thought, and opened a channel to the rest of his fleet.

"Copper, Thunder, take the damaged hive."

The two smaller cruisers peeled away, heading for the struggling hive. Guide saw its thrusters flare again, ragged and uneven, unable to turn in time to meet the attack. Energy weapons sliced across heavy hide, scoring deep into the hive's systems. The hive rolled, trailing vapor, main engines firing. It dropped out of the plane of the ecliptic, the cruisers in pursuit, but the hive opened a hyperspace window and was gone.

"Leave them," Guide said, and the cruisers turned, obedient. In his own screens, the less damaged hive swung to meet him, weapons blazing. He saw them strike home, felt the ship's pain and anger and steadied it on its course. His gunners had their targets, he could hear the chatter confirming it, but discipline held. A little longer, he thought, just a little more –

"Fire," he said, mind and voice alike, and Just Fortune staggered with the weight of its own attack. Lines of light cut across the darkness, spearing the other hive, each weak point targeted and hit. The other hive shuddered, bucking, and then a hole opened in its hull just aft of the central gap. Atmosphere boiled free, and then the explosion followed.

"Atlantis," he said, switching to the familiar channel. "Sheppard."

"He's busy." That was Carter's Consort, O'Neill. Of course Sheppard would be in ship-trance.

Guide said, "Farseer and Copper will remain to cover you. If I share our Dart code, can you get it to your ships? I do not wish my people destroyed by their allies."

"Send it over," O'Neill said. "We'll pass it on."

Guide touched his controls, releasing the identifying code. "Can you read that?"

There was a moment's pause, and then O'Neill said, "We have it. I'm transmitting it to our ships and the 302s."

"Then we will take the fight to Queen Death," Guide said. He looked across the control room. “Bonewhite. Can you give me another short jump?”